Ken Loach’s latest film – I, Daniel Blake – has received mixed reviews and has given rise to a lot of debate. One of the key elements of the film is how the benefits system in the UK places people in a humiliating and depressing situation, where they are no longer individuals but just claimants, [...]

Director: Ki-Duk Kim Cast: Yeong-su Oh, Jong-ho Kim, Young-min Kim, Jae-kyeong, Seo Yeo-jin Ha Duration: 103 min A Buddhist monk lives with his young disciple in a floating wooden house-temple in the middle of a lake. As the seasons change and succeed one another, the young student passes the corresponding stages of life to reach [...]

The Thirteenth Floor is a 1999 movie directed by Josef Rusnak and a co-production of Germany and the United States. The story is based on the novel by Daniel Galouve, “Simulacron 3” (1964). The old tradition in Oriental philosophy teaches a fundamental principle that says that everything in our world is “Maya”, a lie, an [...]

Director: Pan Nalin Cast: Shawn Ku, Christy Chung, Neelesha BaVora, Lhakpa Tsering, Tenzin Tashi Duration: 145 min “What is more important: satisfying one thousand desires or conquering just one?” What is “Samsara”? For the Buddhists, Samsara is the wheel of rebirths. More specifically, it means rotation and change. Its rotation comes from the force of [...]

This book by Yann Martel published in 2001, subsequently inspired a movie of the same name in 2012 (By Director Ang Lee). The book has won a series of awards including the UK man booker prize. The story is about a 16-year old boy who suffers a shipwreck in which his family dies, and is [...]

Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed Duration: 155 min. This is a pure Hollywood movie that nonetheless refers to a very important era of history – the beginning of the fall of the Roman Empire. This movie reminds us of the glory of Rome, long before Christian historians misjudged [...]

Director: Guillermo del Toro Cast: Ariadna Gil, Sergi Lopez, Ivana Baquero, Maribel Verdu, Doug Jones Duration: 119 min. This is a story that unfolds at two levels. At a real one (in Franco’s Spain where his generals face the resistance of the extreme left rebels) and at a symbolic level, the inner world of the [...]